Alexander Thurston
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 134284 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Alexander Thurston |
| NOMBRES | Alexander |
| APELLIDO | Thurston |
| FIRMA | THURSTON A |
| AFILIACIONES | University of Cincinnati |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1765-3414 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 24 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 14 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 25 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2013 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 2 |
Political violence and transport infrastructure in West Africa
Rival Fiqh Paradigms in a Nigerian Court Case
This paper examines the Islamic source-texts and jurisprudential manuals cited in a famous Nigerian court case, that of Safiyatu Hussaini in 2000–2002. Convicted of adultery by a sharī ʿ a court following “full sharī ʿ a ” implementation and codification in northern Nigerian states, Hussaini was acquitted upon appeal. This paper argues that the legal manuals cited in the proceedings display a clear pattern, and that the citations can be grouped i…
The Mālikiyya in the Twenty-First Century
This article examines the contemporary trajectories of the Mālikiyya, one of the four main extant legal schools within Sunni Islam. The article argues that the contest around defending, attacking, and reformulating traditionalist Islamic fiqh (jurisprudence) is one of the key venues for negotiating Islamic identity in the twenty-first century. Yet traditionalist jurists have been an afterthought in discussions of the “makers” or “shapers” of cont…
Salafism and dialectics of Muslim identity in Nigeria and the Sahel
Legislative Elections Amid Civil Wars
This paper investigates ruling parties’ calculations in wartime legislative elections. The paper argues that ruling parties’ strategies are shaped by opportunity structures and the party’s desire to protect party insiders, rather than simply by considerations about ‘government-held’ or ‘rebel-held’ territory. Ruling parties may adopt several strategies: (1) ceding seats to popular opposition candidates, even in government-controlled territory; (2…
Wahhabi Compromises and “Soft Salafization” in the Sahel
By the 2010s, Salafi-Wahhabi identities in Mali had become less stark and distinct than they were a generation ago. Salafism has become more a set of practices and styles from which lay Muslims choose selectively, rather than an identity that requires total commitment, high visibility, and criticism of other Muslims. Moreover, the spread of Salafi-jihadi movements has led some prominent Salafi clerics to take pains to distinguish themselves from …
Clerical independence and the religious field in post-colonial Mauritania
Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of the ‘religious field’, this paper examines the roles available to Mauritanian clerics at different points in the country’s postcolonial history. The paper retraces the interaction between an imam, his students, and the postcolonial state. Buddāh Wuld al-Būṣayrī (1920–2009), the longtime official imam of Mauritania’s capital Nouakchott, had state backing for much of his career and was an interlocutor for hea…
Illiberalism and post-conflict settlements with jihadists
This paper draws on recent research in peace studies in order to analyse peacebuilding efforts with jihadists in central Mali. The paper explores two main streams of data: first, an exchange of messages between a Malian jihadist leader, Amadou Kouffa, and a Malian Muslim cleric; and, second, survey data on Malians’ attitudes towards politics and Islamic law. The paper also discusses what is known about a pattern of fragile, temporary, localised c…
Northern Nigerian intellectuals, Sudan, and the "eclectic style" in contemporary Islamic thought
This article examines two northern Nigerian Muslim intellectuals - Aminu Sagagi and Sanusi Lamido Sanusi (enthroned as Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II of Kano, 2014-20) - whose approaches, in different ways, exemplify a self-consciously eclectic Islamic intellectual style. Their eclecticism breaks with categories familiar from the study of Islam in Africa and Nigeria, categories such as Sufis, Salafis and Islamists. The eclecticist style - or rather, st…
Negotiating Secularism in the Sahel
French-style secularism or laïcité is part of the constitutional order and the elite political culture in most of the Sahel. Yet in this region, laïcité—sometimes defined as the effort to protect the state from religion, as opposed to the American style of protecting religion from the state—does not entail complete aloofness on the part of the state. Rather, Sahelian laïcité has tended to involve: (i) state regulation of religion; (ii) strategic …
Sectarian Triangles
Sectarianization”—the political instrumentalization of sectarian identities—is a profitable strategy for many state and non-state actors. This paper presents a theory of sectarianization, as well as an accompanying typology. The paper does not seek to explain the causes of sectarian conflict; rather, the paper examines how third parties respond to exogenous instances of such conflict. The paper argues that third parties face incentives to cultiva…
Jihadists of North Africa and the Sahel
Jihadist movements have claimed that they are merely vehicles for the application of God's word, distancing themselves from politics, which they call dirty and manmade. Yet on closer examination, jihadist movements are immersed in politics, negotiating political relationships not just with the forces surrounding them, but also within their own ranks. Drawing on case studies from North Africa and the Sahel - including Algeria, Libya, Mali, Niger, …
Polyvalent, Transnational Religious Authority
The Tijaniyya-Ibrahimiyya, a Sufi Muslim community in West Africa, has a longstanding relationship with Al-Azhar University in Egypt; since the 1980s, many of the Tijaniyya-Ibrahimiyya’s most prominent younger leaders have been graduates of Al-Azhar. This article explores what this relationship has meant for constructions of religious authority within the Tijaniyya-Ibrahimiyya, examining how Al-Azhar graduates view their experiences of educationa…
Boko Haram
A comprehensive history of one of the world's deadliest jihadist groupsBoko Haram is one of the world’s deadliest jihadist groups. It has killed more than twenty thousand people and displaced more than two million in a campaign of terror that began in Nigeria but has since spread to Chad, Niger, and Cameroon as well. This is the first book to tell the full story of this West African affiliate of the Islamic State, from its beginnings in the early…
Shari‘ah on Trial
The Politics of Technocracy in Fourth Republic Nigeria
The technocrat, a supposedly apolitical figure who joins government on the basis of technical expertise, looms large in discussions of governance. The empowerment of technocrats has sometimes been taken as a barometer for Africa's economic and democratic progress. Rejecting this conventional wisdom, this article argues that technocrats are inevitably trapped in a web of politics-politicians leverage the apolitical image of technocrats for politic…
Boko Haram
Algeria’s GIA
In the mid-1990s, the world’s most successful jihadi group – the group that came closest to overthrowing an Arab regime – was Algeria’s Groupe islamique armé (Armed Islamic Group, GIA). Here I argue that the GIA was the first major armed group to prioritize adherence to Salafi theology over the jihadi strategic objective of building a “big tent.” The GIA used the vocabulary of Salafism to justify killing rivals and would-be allies and eventually …
Coded Language Among Muslim Activists
This article examines how use of the Prophet Muḥammad's Khuṭbat al-ḥāja (Sermon of Necessity) became a distinguishing marker of Salafism. To understand the Sermon's role, the article draws on the notion of "coded language," messages that communities use to communicate with insiders while excluding outsiders. The article analyzes the content of the Sermon and describes its spread among Salafīs. The Sermon was championed by Muḥammad Nāṣir al-Dīn al…
Salafism in Nigeria
The spectre of Boko Haram and its activities in Nigeria dominates both media and academic analysis of Islam in the region. But, as Alexander Thurston argues here, beyond the sensational headlines this group generates, the dynamics of Muslim life in northern Nigeria remain poorly understood. Drawing on interviews with leading Salafis in Nigeria as well as on a rereading of the history of the global Salafi movement, this volume explores how a canon…
The Salafi Ideal of Electronic Media as an Intellectual Meritocracy in Kano, Nigeria
Journal Article The Salafi Ideal of Electronic Media as an Intellectual Meritocracy in Kano, Nigeria Get access Alexander Thurston Alexander Thurston * Alexander Thurston, Georgetown University, 478 Inter-Cultural Center, 37th and O Streets NW, Washington, DC 20057, USA. I gratefully acknowledge support from the Social Science Research Council and the Wenner-Gren Foundation, which made the research for this article possible. I thank Muhammad Sani…
Muslim politics and shari'a in Kano State, Northern Nigeria
Journal Article Muslim politics and shari’a in Kano State, Northern Nigeria Get access Alex Thurston Alex Thurston ([email protected]) Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 114, Issue 454, January 2015, Pages 28–51, https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adu077 Published: 26 November 2014
The Era of Overseas Scholarships
In independence-era Northern Nigeria, different segments of the modernizing elite contended over defining the place of Islam in society. This article argues that the case of Northern Nigeria disrupts scholarly periodizations of twentieth-century Islamic thought and activism that depict the 1950s and 1960s as a time of secularist dominance. The specificity of Muslim communities' experiences of colonialism and decolonization helped shape the role I…
Mauritania’s Islamists
State, society and Islam in the Western regions of the Sahara
Muslim politics and shari'a in Kano State, Northern Nigeria
Journal Article Muslim politics and shari’a in Kano State, Northern Nigeria Get access Alex Thurston Alex Thurston ([email protected]) Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 114, Issue 454, January 2015, Pages 28–51, https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adu077 Published: 26 November 2014
The Politics of Technocracy in Fourth Republic Nigeria
The technocrat, a supposedly apolitical figure who joins government on the basis of technical expertise, looms large in discussions of governance. The empowerment of technocrats has sometimes been taken as a barometer for Africa's economic and democratic progress. Rejecting this conventional wisdom, this article argues that technocrats are inevitably trapped in a web of politics-politicians leverage the apolitical image of technocrats for politic…
Algeria’s GIA
In the mid-1990s, the world’s most successful jihadi group – the group that came closest to overthrowing an Arab regime – was Algeria’s Groupe islamique armé (Armed Islamic Group, GIA). Here I argue that the GIA was the first major armed group to prioritize adherence to Salafi theology over the jihadi strategic objective of building a “big tent.” The GIA used the vocabulary of Salafism to justify killing rivals and would-be allies and eventually …
Northern Nigerian intellectuals, Sudan, and the "eclectic style" in contemporary Islamic thought
This article examines two northern Nigerian Muslim intellectuals - Aminu Sagagi and Sanusi Lamido Sanusi (enthroned as Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II of Kano, 2014-20) - whose approaches, in different ways, exemplify a self-consciously eclectic Islamic intellectual style. Their eclecticism breaks with categories familiar from the study of Islam in Africa and Nigeria, categories such as Sufis, Salafis and Islamists. The eclecticist style - or rather, st…
Sectarian Triangles
Sectarianization”—the political instrumentalization of sectarian identities—is a profitable strategy for many state and non-state actors. This paper presents a theory of sectarianization, as well as an accompanying typology. The paper does not seek to explain the causes of sectarian conflict; rather, the paper examines how third parties respond to exogenous instances of such conflict. The paper argues that third parties face incentives to cultiva…
The Era of Overseas Scholarships
In independence-era Northern Nigeria, different segments of the modernizing elite contended over defining the place of Islam in society. This article argues that the case of Northern Nigeria disrupts scholarly periodizations of twentieth-century Islamic thought and activism that depict the 1950s and 1960s as a time of secularist dominance. The specificity of Muslim communities' experiences of colonialism and decolonization helped shape the role I…
Mauritania’s Islamists
The Era of Overseas Scholarships
In independence-era Northern Nigeria, different segments of the modernizing elite contended over defining the place of Islam in society. This article argues that the case of Northern Nigeria disrupts scholarly periodizations of twentieth-century Islamic thought and activism that depict the 1950s and 1960s as a time of secularist dominance. The specificity of Muslim communities' experiences of colonialism and decolonization helped shape the role I…
The Salafi Ideal of Electronic Media as an Intellectual Meritocracy in Kano, Nigeria
Journal Article The Salafi Ideal of Electronic Media as an Intellectual Meritocracy in Kano, Nigeria Get access Alexander Thurston Alexander Thurston * Alexander Thurston, Georgetown University, 478 Inter-Cultural Center, 37th and O Streets NW, Washington, DC 20057, USA. I gratefully acknowledge support from the Social Science Research Council and the Wenner-Gren Foundation, which made the research for this article possible. I thank Muhammad Sani…
Muslim politics and shari'a in Kano State, Northern Nigeria
Journal Article Muslim politics and shari’a in Kano State, Northern Nigeria Get access Alex Thurston Alex Thurston ([email protected]) Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 114, Issue 454, January 2015, Pages 28–51, https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adu077 Published: 26 November 2014
Salafism in Nigeria
The spectre of Boko Haram and its activities in Nigeria dominates both media and academic analysis of Islam in the region. But, as Alexander Thurston argues here, beyond the sensational headlines this group generates, the dynamics of Muslim life in northern Nigeria remain poorly understood. Drawing on interviews with leading Salafis in Nigeria as well as on a rereading of the history of the global Salafi movement, this volume explores how a canon…
Boko Haram
Algeria’s GIA
In the mid-1990s, the world’s most successful jihadi group – the group that came closest to overthrowing an Arab regime – was Algeria’s Groupe islamique armé (Armed Islamic Group, GIA). Here I argue that the GIA was the first major armed group to prioritize adherence to Salafi theology over the jihadi strategic objective of building a “big tent.” The GIA used the vocabulary of Salafism to justify killing rivals and would-be allies and eventually …
Coded Language Among Muslim Activists
This article examines how use of the Prophet Muḥammad's Khuṭbat al-ḥāja (Sermon of Necessity) became a distinguishing marker of Salafism. To understand the Sermon's role, the article draws on the notion of "coded language," messages that communities use to communicate with insiders while excluding outsiders. The article analyzes the content of the Sermon and describes its spread among Salafīs. The Sermon was championed by Muḥammad Nāṣir al-Dīn al…
Polyvalent, Transnational Religious Authority
The Tijaniyya-Ibrahimiyya, a Sufi Muslim community in West Africa, has a longstanding relationship with Al-Azhar University in Egypt; since the 1980s, many of the Tijaniyya-Ibrahimiyya’s most prominent younger leaders have been graduates of Al-Azhar. This article explores what this relationship has meant for constructions of religious authority within the Tijaniyya-Ibrahimiyya, examining how Al-Azhar graduates view their experiences of educationa…
Boko Haram
A comprehensive history of one of the world's deadliest jihadist groupsBoko Haram is one of the world’s deadliest jihadist groups. It has killed more than twenty thousand people and displaced more than two million in a campaign of terror that began in Nigeria but has since spread to Chad, Niger, and Cameroon as well. This is the first book to tell the full story of this West African affiliate of the Islamic State, from its beginnings in the early…
Shari‘ah on Trial
The Politics of Technocracy in Fourth Republic Nigeria
The technocrat, a supposedly apolitical figure who joins government on the basis of technical expertise, looms large in discussions of governance. The empowerment of technocrats has sometimes been taken as a barometer for Africa's economic and democratic progress. Rejecting this conventional wisdom, this article argues that technocrats are inevitably trapped in a web of politics-politicians leverage the apolitical image of technocrats for politic…
Jihadists of North Africa and the Sahel
Jihadist movements have claimed that they are merely vehicles for the application of God's word, distancing themselves from politics, which they call dirty and manmade. Yet on closer examination, jihadist movements are immersed in politics, negotiating political relationships not just with the forces surrounding them, but also within their own ranks. Drawing on case studies from North Africa and the Sahel - including Algeria, Libya, Mali, Niger, …
Negotiating Secularism in the Sahel
French-style secularism or laïcité is part of the constitutional order and the elite political culture in most of the Sahel. Yet in this region, laïcité—sometimes defined as the effort to protect the state from religion, as opposed to the American style of protecting religion from the state—does not entail complete aloofness on the part of the state. Rather, Sahelian laïcité has tended to involve: (i) state regulation of religion; (ii) strategic …
Sectarian Triangles
Sectarianization”—the political instrumentalization of sectarian identities—is a profitable strategy for many state and non-state actors. This paper presents a theory of sectarianization, as well as an accompanying typology. The paper does not seek to explain the causes of sectarian conflict; rather, the paper examines how third parties respond to exogenous instances of such conflict. The paper argues that third parties face incentives to cultiva…
Wahhabi Compromises and “Soft Salafization” in the Sahel
By the 2010s, Salafi-Wahhabi identities in Mali had become less stark and distinct than they were a generation ago. Salafism has become more a set of practices and styles from which lay Muslims choose selectively, rather than an identity that requires total commitment, high visibility, and criticism of other Muslims. Moreover, the spread of Salafi-jihadi movements has led some prominent Salafi clerics to take pains to distinguish themselves from …
Clerical independence and the religious field in post-colonial Mauritania
Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of the ‘religious field’, this paper examines the roles available to Mauritanian clerics at different points in the country’s postcolonial history. The paper retraces the interaction between an imam, his students, and the postcolonial state. Buddāh Wuld al-Būṣayrī (1920–2009), the longtime official imam of Mauritania’s capital Nouakchott, had state backing for much of his career and was an interlocutor for hea…
Illiberalism and post-conflict settlements with jihadists
This paper draws on recent research in peace studies in order to analyse peacebuilding efforts with jihadists in central Mali. The paper explores two main streams of data: first, an exchange of messages between a Malian jihadist leader, Amadou Kouffa, and a Malian Muslim cleric; and, second, survey data on Malians’ attitudes towards politics and Islamic law. The paper also discusses what is known about a pattern of fragile, temporary, localised c…
Northern Nigerian intellectuals, Sudan, and the "eclectic style" in contemporary Islamic thought
This article examines two northern Nigerian Muslim intellectuals - Aminu Sagagi and Sanusi Lamido Sanusi (enthroned as Emir Muhammadu Sanusi II of Kano, 2014-20) - whose approaches, in different ways, exemplify a self-consciously eclectic Islamic intellectual style. Their eclecticism breaks with categories familiar from the study of Islam in Africa and Nigeria, categories such as Sufis, Salafis and Islamists. The eclecticist style - or rather, st…
Legislative Elections Amid Civil Wars
This paper investigates ruling parties’ calculations in wartime legislative elections. The paper argues that ruling parties’ strategies are shaped by opportunity structures and the party’s desire to protect party insiders, rather than simply by considerations about ‘government-held’ or ‘rebel-held’ territory. Ruling parties may adopt several strategies: (1) ceding seats to popular opposition candidates, even in government-controlled territory; (2…
Salafism and dialectics of Muslim identity in Nigeria and the Sahel
State, society and Islam in the Western regions of the Sahara
Political violence and transport infrastructure in West Africa
Rival Fiqh Paradigms in a Nigerian Court Case
This paper examines the Islamic source-texts and jurisprudential manuals cited in a famous Nigerian court case, that of Safiyatu Hussaini in 2000–2002. Convicted of adultery by a sharī ʿ a court following “full sharī ʿ a ” implementation and codification in northern Nigerian states, Hussaini was acquitted upon appeal. This paper argues that the legal manuals cited in the proceedings display a clear pattern, and that the citations can be grouped i…
The Mālikiyya in the Twenty-First Century
This article examines the contemporary trajectories of the Mālikiyya, one of the four main extant legal schools within Sunni Islam. The article argues that the contest around defending, attacking, and reformulating traditionalist Islamic fiqh (jurisprudence) is one of the key venues for negotiating Islamic identity in the twenty-first century. Yet traditionalist jurists have been an afterthought in discussions of the “makers” or “shapers” of cont…
Political science (23 obras) · Law (19 obras) · Sociology (19 obras) · Politics (16 obras) · Islam (11 obras) · Philosophy (10 obras) · Political economy (10 obras) · Law (9 obras) · African Studies and Geopolitics (8 obras) · Religion and Sociopolitical Dynamics in Nigeria (7 obras)